....Hey isn't that where they made Lord of the Rings, isn't it, well isn't it.......

Saturday, 23 June 2007

My thing................

As you know there has been a lot of thinking about knitting going on here lately. I have also been thinking about how knitting looks to the knitting outsider. Have you ever had a nonknitter tell you they would be bored by knitting and felt surprise over such sentiment? Bored, are you nuts?! But really why isn't it boring? You perform the same act over and over for thousand of stitches and many hours. Even when I am just knitting a simple garter stitch I am entertained. How is it I am not bored? I get bored with other monotonous tasks. My rationale in the past has been that "knitting is my thing". My thing, what does that even mean? What is about the act of knitting that has so captured my attention. I have tried crocheting and in small doses it is okay but it isn't my thing. I felt in my heart of hearts I would adore weaving but for some reason it isn't proving to be my thing either. Why? You know I have no idea. A couple of weeks ago I went to an upholstery class. I am going to be reupholstering all the furniture in my home. In my ignorance and yes arrogance I proclaimed I would have no trouble reupholstering the furniture - I mean how hard could it be? I would get a book and I would work it out. A local school had a weekend class and I thought why not, maybe get some pointers. Well as you may have already guessed I was a bloody fool. There is a reason why you pay a lot of money to get furniture reupholstered. It is right up there with knitting in time spent to accomplish a project and skill required to make it look anything other than a dog's dinner. I bought in a chair and then spent the next day and half removing the fabric and the many, many staples. I seem to inspire pity by many of the other participants for how monotonous my task was. But I had the time of my life. As each piece of fabric came off I marvelled over how completely clever upholstery was (like how the construction of a sock gets you every time you stop and think about it - "and then I turn the corner, with my knitting, just knit a corner"). And the rhythm of deconstructing the piece soothed me and emptied my mind so I could think more clearly like knitting does. And then slowly rebuilding the chair delighted me. And then it hit me upholstery is my thing. I never expected upholstery to be my thing, and so this takes me by surprise. It has also made me realise I don't really know what is going to give me fever until I try it. I find this thought really odd. I have resigned up for this class in September (it is the next one available) and I can't wait. I still have to finish the chair plus this time I am going to bring something that requires me to respring it. Oh and did I mention upholstery tools, they really rock! Power stapler - bang bang, stick it up buster! (Don't try that at home because as we all know it isn't safe to point a stapler on an air compressor at someone. Please note I am in no way advocating you point a stapler at anyone. Not unless it is really funny or they really annoy you, only then.)

2 comments:

The upholstery class sounds like great fun! Anything involving the use of air-compression aided tools sounds terribly appealing. :) And getting to see how furniture is put together is of course way cool. I agree, you never knows what will be "your thing" until you try it!